As the saying goes, "You can't fix stupid!" But then again, perhaps suing someone else when it's your own fault will help!!

I'm really glad that she is okay - it could have turned out much worse. But I really hope they rule against her. People just no longer want to take responsibility for their own actions and instead, when they make a bad decision, they want to blame it on others. And then, to top it off, when it is their fault, they still want to look for a way to make an easy buck by suing people.

Like the lady who sued McDonald's because she spilled hot coffee in her lap while holding it between her legs and driving a car! And she won!!! Seriously?

Or the guy who wanted to commit suicide and intentionally jumped in front of a NY subway train. It didn't kill him, so he sued the subway and won!!

Oh well, the insurance company will pay her to settle, causing the insurance premiums to go up, which will be passed along to the passengers in the form of higher cruise fares. But that's okay, in the long run, it still won't fix stupid!

Of course it's a bit short on details! A reporter wrote the story and you know how the press likes to paint a one-sided picture in favor of the negative.

They did say, "Rebecca, who was in the cabin's bathroom and didnít see Sarah fall..."

Okay, so she didn't see her fall! How the hell did she know her friend fell overboard? She could have left and gone back to the club!

Like I said, leave it to the press to leave alot to the imagination in the story along with alot of unanswered questions. A good reporter should never leave important information out of story and the biggest question is how did the girlfriend know for a fact that the girl fell overboard? The captain would have asked her the same question and since she couldn't provide a definitive statement beyond a doubt, then they needed to insure the women was not on the ship before undergoing a massive and expensive search that may have been conducted needlessly. Between the two women, it sounds like they were both pretty wasted and not very coherent.

Then again, they blame the bartender for holding them down, forcing their mouth open, and pouring alcohol down their throat against their will.

I am constantly amazed at the things people will sue for, I mean I would have just been thankful that I was found in time. I mean who knows if her friend was really that wasted it is lucky that she didn't just pass out in a chair or something and then her being lost wouldn't have been realized until morning. I guarantee she would not have been alive then.

The part in the article where she is implying the bartender's kept trying to get them to drink more Long Island Iced Teas by offering coupons to the casino just made me laugh. I mean of course they did, he is trying to make a sale. He didn't say the only way she could truly enjoy those drinks is to go for a midnight swim the hard way.

Ridiculous, I hate that she will get any money from this at all but I agree she will probably be paid off. I am sure there is no where in her terms and conditions that states they will babysit her to make sure she doesn't get so drunk she falls off the boat.

The "details" that were left off is what she "really" did to manage to fall off the ship, because and ship balcony railing is about chest level, and just leaning over backwards to look up is not going to let you fall in - UNLESS you are sitting on the railing, standing on a chair or something else stupid like that.

Let's not take the seriousness of this situation too lightly. People falling off of cruise ships is a tragedy because the vast majority of them are never found. And yet it is still logical for the captain to take some time to make sure she was not still on the ship - its ridiculous to turn a ship around every time someone can't find a loved one - that must happen 100 times a day.

No, the roommate did not hear her fall, all she knew was she was there and then she was gone, and she did not walk out the door.

I have called for cruise lines to make it harder for people to fall over. One could start by just simply making it too uncomfortable to sit on railings. Put tiny little "fixtures" on the them so you can't get comfortable sitting on one. Like this:

But I also expect that some people who fall are doing other stupid things - trying to spy on their neighbors, perhaps, or if on a raked balcony trying to get high enough to see onto the balcony above.

Basically - just NEVER do it.

Do I think she will win that lawsuit? If she does it will be because the lawyer convinces a jury she was over-served alcohol. But no one poured it down her throat, and she didn't have to drive anywhere, so I doubt it is a winner.

It is an unfortunate commentary on today's society, but the fact is a vast majority of juries in lawsuits only see a big company with deep pockets and the poor pitiful complainant and don't pay attention to the facts.

A friend of mine was on a jury where a woman sued the local phone company because she walked into their office door and broke her nose. She was yakking on a cell phone and not paying attention. The door was clearly marked, etc., and it was, to him, an 'open and shut case' if you pardon the pun. So they get in in the jury room and everyone agrees Bellsouth wasn't at fault. But then a couple of the jurors said 'well, we still ought to give her something for her trouble, they can afford it'. He was aghast. In the end he prevailed (very large and intimidating man) and the woman didn't get a penny, but still it happens every day and we end up paying for it.

As has been said and as we all know, you can't fix stupid and yes, juries will award people money for the dumbest things you can imagine.
With regards to what Paul said about putting something on the balcony rails to make it too uncomfortable to sit on,. that's just another lawsuit--as someone would sue because they got a pain in the arse !
My dear friends, we are witnesses to the dumbing down of America and the coming of age of the " regardless of what I did, someone owes me " period in
our history--it's happening as we speak. Sad but oh so true!

As has been said and as we all know, you can't fix stupid and yes, juries will award people money for the dumbest things you can imagine.
With regards to what Paul said about putting something on the balcony rails to make it too uncomfortable to sit on,. that's just another lawsuit--as someone would sue because they got a pain in the arse !
My dear friends, we are witnesses to the dumbing down of America and the coming of age of the " regardless of what I did, someone owes me " period in
our history--it's happening as we speak. Sad but oh so true!

It already happened. My British friends like to comment on how litigious Americans are and they are right.

In Europe, when you go to the various attractions there usually are no glass boxes or railings to keep you from touching the pictures, sculptures, stones. You are expected to show common sense. The only place I have seen this in the U.S. is at the Getty. I think that describes the American mindset to a tee.

I hear that! We're always commenting when we're in Europe about some of the things they do different over there that you'd never see over here because of people being too litigious.

But then again, we've also made many things better because of such lawsuits. Look at the Americans With Disabilities Act. Because of lawsuits, we've made it much easier for those with disabilities to be more independent and have accessibility to things they were excluded from in the past. In Europe, for example, you don't see wheelchair ramps on the curbs. Here, they are required.

So while often alot of these lawsuits are frivolous and should be arbitrarily dismissed, some of these that seem frivolous but end up helping many people in ways we could not initially imagine.

The difference is between "real" lawsuits and frivolous one. I am guess a ski resort probably thinks it is a bit of a waste of money to require wheelchair ramps to the ski lifts. But that's another story... I get your point.

In Europe they don't disallow such lawsuits, but if you bring one and lose then you can be fined for wasting the court's time and you can be made liable to pay all of the other party's legal fees - without him having to sue for them in a separate lawsuit.

Our problem is that we have a Trial Lawyers Assn. that thrives on lawsuits - fully knowing that just the threat of a lawsuit is enough to keep them in business. The vast, vast majority never go to trial. They are settled to save the time and money of litigating.

I can think of a couple of lawyers in the cruise business I know that are just outright jerks. They have written demeaning and personally insulting things to and about me that are not true - but because they are lawyers they know they can get away with saying whatever they want because if I tried to sue them they would just litigate the cases themselves.

They are bullies, know-it-alls and just flat out jerks and losers. Not all lawyers are bad, but you know some of them walk around with sense of entitlement and such inflated egos it isn't even funny.

Here in California ADA was used to extort small businesses. There were people that threatened to sue if they weren't paid off, in fact they were making a business out of it much like Westboro Baptist Church does.

The good news is that finally the court system here is starting to make them pay if they lose, which they should in these nuisance suits.

There's no doubt that some lawsuits are legitimate and that there has been some brought forth that were useful.
It's the plain old dumb crap that ties up the courts, costs the tax payers millions, doesn't do anything but degrade the legitimate suits that should be heard, and are having to wait on the back burner for a chance to be heard.
The guy who gets drunk, wrecks, sues the bar, the people who made the alcohol, and even sues the maker of the vehicle he was in --to me is as dumb as it can get--but it happens. One guy started going to one of these riverboat gambling dens -- spent all his savings of a whopping ten thousand dollars, then he and the family sued the owners of the floating casino because they they got him " addicted to gambling "-- I don't know how that turned out but I do think he won.
Plain old common sense should prevail when it comes to our court system but it certainly doesn't anymore.
A guy with a bad heart pulling a string to start a lawn mower had a heart attack-- the family sued the people who made the lawn mower and won-- so, as I said, we are witnessing the coming of age in America of " I'm owed compensation " regardess of fault. Pity us in another dozen years.
Maybe the insurance industry will just automatically send everyone a release and a check for about ten grand every year to just eliminate these petty and childish suits. The worse thing is the judges that let some of these childish things even get into court.

I think we need to use our common sense here, too. The example of the McDonald's coffee case always fails to mention that she won because the workers had let the coffee machine turn off, so the coffee was cold. When the woman ordered coffee, an employee put it in the microwave for several minutes. It was boiling hot. That's why she won. It was not a simple burn.
That said, I do agree that we are lawsuit crazy these days.
A good friend was rear-ended late one night. He was completely sober and stopped at a light. (A musician on his way home from a gig.) The woman who hit him hit hard enough that his truck rolled 3 times into a ditch. When the police came, she admitted to them that she was very drunk. He had a broken neck. But, a lawyer got ahold of the woman and she sued our friend. I have no idea what she claimed....maybe that he was in her way? She did not win, thankfully, but the whole thing was outrageous and very stressful for him and his wife.
Marty

As has been said and as we all know, you can't fix stupid and yes, juries will award people money for the dumbest things you can imagine.
With regards to what Paul said about putting something on the balcony rails to make it too uncomfortable to sit on,. that's just another lawsuit--as someone would sue because they got a pain in the arse !
My dear friends, we are witnesses to the dumbing down of America and the coming of age of the " regardless of what I did, someone owes me " period in
our history--it's happening as we speak. Sad but oh so true!

So true. So sad too. Everyone are so concerned about their rights-they could care less if they stomp on everyone else's rights as long as they get "their rights.".

Like the lady who sued McDonald's because she spilled hot coffee in her lap while holding it between her legs and driving a car! And she won!!! Seriously?

Just a couple points of clarification for the sake of accuracy (and I know I'm not going to change your mind.)

She wasn't driving a car. The car she was a passenger in was parked at the time of the incident.

We have all spilled coffee on ourselves accidentally. It's a fair guess none of us have suffered 3rd degree burns from doing that.

The thrust of this case was that McDonald's was serving coffee to people in cars at near boiling point, where it was not only impossible to drink, but could cause severe burns if accidentally spilled. Since this coffee was far hotter than anybody else served, nobody would expect that. McDonald's had received hundreds of complaints about their scalding coffee, including reports of 3rd degree burns, and had made payments to prior victims.

The elderly customer in question was holding her coffee between her legs in a non-moving car and trying to pry the lid off. In doing so, she accidentally spilled the scalding coffee on her thighs and privates and suffered 3rd degree burns.

It's also worth noting the woman never sued for punitive damages, just medical. The rest was awarded.